Friday, April 24, 2009

Street Names

If you were to go to maps.google.com and type in "Toh Tuck, Singapore" you would find you have a lot of options. There is Toh Tuck Ave, Toh Tuck Close, Toh Tuck Crecent, Toh Tuck Drive, Toh Tuck Link, Toh Tuck Place, Toh Tuck Rise, Toh Tuck Road, Toh Tuck Terrace and Toh Tuck Walk. That's pretty confusing if you ask me. Doubly confusing is that all these streets are in the same neighborhood. Doubly, doubly confusing is that right next to all these Toh Tucks are all the Old Toh Tucks. Extra doubly, doubly confusing is that some of the names are used for multiple streets that are near each other but not touching. So you might take a left on Toh Tuck Rise, turn right on Toh Tuck Place, curve around onto Toh Tuck Terrace and then take a right onto Toh Tuck Rise (not the Toh Tuck Rise you were originally on, though).

And, the Toh Tucks aren't the only ones. It's a trend in Singaporean street naming. There are all the West Coasts and the Thomsons and the Tai Huans and the Tai Sengs and the Sunsets and the. . . you get the idea.

I'm sure there is some reason they chose to do it this way. I'm still trying to figure out what that might be. So far, I haven't come up with much.

Yeah, that drives me crazy. I get that it means you're in a certain neighborhood, like "Toa Payoh" or "the Namblys" but it seems a trifle uncreative. Not to mention hard, when you forget which Nambly your friend lives on - you can't just guess!

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Welcome to the world of insignificant, everyday Singapore. This is our attempt to capture what life is like for an American family living in Singapore. The everyday side of life. The side that cares about things like Cheerios and Ziplock Bags.